I had ADD before it was known to be a thing. I breezed through school never doing any homework and was a solid C student. The only thing that saved me was I always did well on tests, and I happen to be a bit smart.
Once I entered the professional world I found out I could no longer coast. A string of screw ups early on in my first job happened that were my fault and I was forced to pay attention to what I was doing. I went through a string of organizational systems starting with Daytimer and ending up with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done,” GTD. The methodology is exhaustive and bulletproof. It is elegant. I started using OmniFocus, a Mac application and stayed with it the rest of my career. It took everything I could throw at it, and I became highly organized.
Entering retirement is forcing me to leave all that behind. Using GTD & Omni Focus in my golden years is like trying to shovel snow off your sidewalk with a road grader. So I am moving to a new system. My current candidate is Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal (BuJo). It is a minimalist system. You can do the whole thing in a small notebook. Perfect.
Having said all this, I really don’t have that much to put in there. There is this thing that has always been rattling around in my brain for most of my adult life though. It goes something like this. “If I can just sit down and take the time to think things through, I can get clarity in my life and things will be oh so much simpler.” I got a notebook and set aside a half hour a day for “thinking time.” The notebook and pen were the only technology I allowed myself. I filled the notebook. I had some nice insights. The activity proved, and continues to prove valuable. So did I get the clarity I was seeking? No. I have at times come close though, and I think that is the best any of us can do. Let me close this missive with one of my favorite quotations. “The picture is far too big for you to see kid. Your eyes don’t open wide enough.”
Ridgewalker's Notebook 